| dc.description.abstract | In the last decade, the application of microparticles, nanoparticles
and composite microparticles involved several industrial fields.
Conventional micronization techniques, such as jet milling, spray drying,
liquid antisolvent precipitation and solvent evaporation are sometimes
not suitable, since the produced particles are irregular, with broad size
distribution, could be degraded due to mechanical or thermal stresses and
polluted with organic solvents or other toxic substances. In this context,
supercritical fluids (SCFs) based techniques have been proposed as an
alternative to traditional processes thanks to the specific characteristics
of SCFs, mainly solvent power and liquid-like densities with gas-like
transport properties, that can be tuned varying pressure and temperature.
Among supercritical assisted micronization techniques, Supercritical
Antisolvent (SAS) precipitation has been successfully used to obtain
microparticles and nanoparticles of several kinds of compounds, such as
pharmaceuticals, coloring matters, polymers and biopolymers. In this
process carbon dioxide (CO2) is used as an antisolvent at supercritical
conditions: a solution containing the product to be micronized is injected
into the precipitation chamber, saturated with supercritical carbon
dioxide under the chosen conditions of temperature and pressure. CO2, in
contact with the solution, forms a mixture in which the product is
insoluble, causing the precipitation... [edited by author] | it_IT |
